Late last year Ray Kelvin, the CEO of popular fashion company Ted Baker, announced he’d be taking a “leave of absence”. The leave is thought to be connected to allegations of sexual harassment made against him that surfaced during an external online pulse check of company’s culture, conducted by campaigning website Organise.

According to reports from the Financial Times, when Organise was conducting a generalised survey into misconduct at work (surveying their database of 47,000 members from many different organisations) they noticed two similar reports from Ted Baker employees.

Ted Baker employees then started asking for employees to share their own stories on a private messaging system, which uncovered more stories of harassment.

When Organise’s founder and CEO Nat Whalley caught wind of the stories, she designed a petition to help the employees put an end to this behaviour.

One hundred reports of misconduct were presented to the board, with experiences such as “forced hugs” and “ear kissing” from Kelvin identified as common amongst staff. The board says it won’t comment on the nature of other allegations while the formal investigation is underway.

You can’t help but wonder if these 100 reports would have surfaced if it weren’t for Organise’s intervention. It suggests that reporting avenues and protection policies in place at Ted Baker weren’t up to scratch.

The benefits of online reporting

More than 20,000 employees have chosen to anonymously report misconduct, or provide tips-offs, to the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) since 2016, with the hospitality industry accounting for 36 per cent of tip-offs. So, clearly there’s an appetite for these reporting tools – regardless of whether they’re internally or externally based.

When paired with traditional reporting policies, these tools can have immense benefits for employees. As Usman Mohammed, Organise’s lead campaigner, says, “You’ve then got this ready-made bank of evidence that you can take to your trade union representative or lawyer.”

From an organisational perspective, it’s obviously preferable that this process is done internally. That way the timing, circumstances and outcomes can be appropriately managed by the HR team and avoid being blown out of proportion in the public sphere. A lack of internal reporting options leaves employees with little choice but to reach out externally to have their grievances heard. This might be an external agency like Organise, or worse, the media.

Plus, there’s evidence that employee reporting benefits organisations. As HRM previously reported, new research revealed that 55 per cent of misconduct reports resulted in positive action for the organisation. Adding anonymous online resources to reporting practices would increase the amount of reports coming across HR’s desk.

But there’s a catch

The ability to share stories far and wide online empowers employees to band together, which can then spur on reporting platforms like Organise to put some data behind the open secrets present in the workplace. But what if they get it wrong?

The recent dismissal of Matildas coach Alen Stajcic, just five months before the World Cup, is an interesting case. While it’s not yet clear why Stajcic was fired, it’s speculated to align with reports of harsh treatment of players from a routine anonymous wellbeing audit of Australian national teams.

It’s thought that some of the harsh behaviour included ignoring player’s medical advice to lessen training sessions, body shaming, bullying and intimidation. Younger players are thought to have been the target of this behaviour.

Many current players have jumped to Stajcic’s defence. Stiker Sam Kerr tweeted: “my trust was in Staj to lead us to the World Cup final & I believe he was the best coach for that. Thankful for everything [he’s] done for me and the team”.

Former assistant coach and current Canberra United W-League coach Heather Garriock,added her support. “I have been coached by, and coached with, Alen Stajcic in the National Team set up and can honestly say I am highly respected as a female player and coach.

“’Staj’ is someone who drove the highest standards from day one. He asked players to give everything of themselves for the nation, because he believed that Australia should aspire to be World Champions. Going towards this year’s World Cup, he had carefully crafted together a squad that was ready to carry out that mission.”

It’s somewhat of a grey area now, with some reports speculating that those who anonymously reported “harsh behaviour” from Stajcic may have just been “incapable of meeting the tougher demands expected in an elite sporting environment” and others believing he facilitated an “abusive culture”.

Cultural problems could be assumed, with the assistant coach Nahuel Arrarte also stepping down, but the contradiction between what was reported online and what’s being said publicly highlights the importance of anonymous reporting systems needing to be paired with formal investigations to determine the facts.

Either way, as an employer Football Federation Australia has a duty of care to its players. Even if the allegations against Stajcic prove to be over inflated, it’s clear that his approach wasn’t working for everyone.

Does anonymity even work?

Despite the benefits of offering employees anonymous reporting tools, it can be difficult for an organisation to deal with them. Without attached identity, it’s hard to quantify what’s being said.

This issue has caused at least one organisation to put an end to anonymous reporting. Shane Snow, the co-founder of Contently, has said that it was holding his company back.

In an article penned for Fast Company, Snow acknowledges that certain circumstances call for anonymity and confidentiality, but says two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Some of the feedback he and his team were receiving, such as “does he even know what he’s doing?”, wasn’t very helpful; it did little more than hurt people’s feelings.

As the feedback was submitted anonymously, he wasn’t able to follow up with the employee for clarification. This problem also goes in the opposite direction. One employee said “I don’t feel like I fit in with my team”. What can they do with that information? He also suggests that anonymity reinforces the idea that it’s always risky to speak up, when sometimes it isn’t.

While anonymously providing leadership feedback and reporting misconduct are very different things, issues can arise for both. What if an employee isn’t particularly articulate in accusing an executive of misconduct; perhaps they don’t represent the facts as they occurred, either by accident or purposefully. How can HR know if they’re seeing the full picture, and who do they follow up with to begin gathering evidence?

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/topics/health-wellbeing-and-safety/the-pros-and-cons-of-anonymous-reporting/feed/0‘Nazi sparky’ pays up in bizarre unfair dismissal casehttp://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/legal/nazi-sparky-pays-up-despite-constructive-dismissal/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/legal/nazi-sparky-pays-up-despite-constructive-dismissal/#commentsFri, 18 Jan 2019 06:25:05 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8535This story beggars belief, and it might be one of the most appalling you hear all year.

]]>This story beggars belief, and it might be one of the most appalling you hear all year.

In May last year a Brisbane electrician attempted to force an apprentice to provide information about an ex-employee. Instead the apprentice refused, filed for unfair dismissal, and ended up walking away with $11,400 in compensation.

‘JL’ was hired as an apprentice for Smerff Electrical, a company owned and operated by self-identified ‘Nazi sparky’ Mr Hickey (his website has Pepe the Frog on its banner, and his business was a corporate sponsor of the US-based nationalist and anti-semitic website The Daily Stormer).

Hickey had grown suspicious of a different former employee’s cash jobs and use of company funded petrol cards and so decided to do some investigating but required information from JL regarding the whereabouts of the former employee’s work site. As outlined by the Fair Work Commission’s decision, Hickey eventually offered JL an ultimatum via text, “Your choice today bro. Info or job by 4pm.”

JL refused to share the information with Hickey. The company later tried to claim that JL committed serious misconduct, refused to carry out a reasonable instruction, and had voluntarily left his job (he left his keys in the company vehicle), but the FWC member disagreed.

In the decision, Deputy President Asbury writes, “I am satisfied that Mr Lamacq’s employment was terminated on the initiative of the Mr Hickey, the owner of Smerff. No employee should ever be subjected to the threats and abuse meted out by Mr Hickey.” It’s an interesting point, as she’s effectively saying that the abusive nature of Hickey’s correspondence (by email and text) itself was evidence of a dismissal. “It is inconceivable that an employee who received such messages from an employer could have any view other than that the employment relationship had ended at the initiative of the employer.”

Later, she remarks, “I have not previously encountered a small business owner with such a deplorable attitude to human resource management.”

A fine line?

Some worksites have a culture that encourages banter which stretches the boundaries of good taste. But whatever your particular ‘line’ is when it comes to workplace appropriateness, Hickey was way beyond it. And not just at the end.

A disputed employment contract between Hickey and JL includes the colourful stipulation, “You will be paid Weekly at the rate of $15 per hour. If you are unhappy with your wage, you can f**k off. Nobody is forcing you to work here.”

The full exchange regarding the ex-employee can be read in the report, but just to give you an idea of how Hickey communicated, here are a few of the more gross phrases.

“That motherf**ker was stealing for months.”

“I had a f**kload on this summer so some details slipped through”

“It was that c**t with the f*g son I reckon.”

Other times his communication was bizarre, such as when he quoted white supremacist David Lane. “To make a race horse pull as much as a plow horse you can only cripple the plow horse…either way the pursuit of equality is the destruction of excellence.”

So where is the line between colourful language, and language that hurts you in an unfair dismissal case?

“My view is that colourful language should be avoided at all times in the workplace but where it particularly escalates in terms of tenor and use may be grounds for disciplinary action,” says Aaron Goonrey, partner at Lander and Rogers.

Hickey didn’t just deploy foul language in his attempt to persuade JL to provide information, he offered monetary inducements and other benefits. “You can have second year wages and super if you want…That’s if you wanna [sic] tell me all you know about [former employee]”.

The whole situation is strange – bribing an employee in this manner is anything but typical. So what does the law say about it?

“In terms of the bribing, I can’t reconcile that with the right of the employer to make a lawful and reasonable request of an employee,” says Goonrey.

“You have certain personalities who are not aware, or do not care about, the nature of employment law and the relationship is governed by laws that allow people such as JL to make claims when they’ve been treated poorly.”

Private information

Does an employee have a duty to fulfil a request like this? After all, it was regarding a job where the ex-employee used Hickey’s equipment.

The short answer is that it depends.

In this case, Goonrey suggests that if relaying information about the former employee’s whereabouts were to incriminate JL in any way, then Hickey’s request for information wouldn’t be reasonable.

Certainly refusing to share the details of the cash job with Mr Hickey wasn’t enough to dismiss JL, says Goonrey.

“There are a few aspects to this case; the way and manner which Hickey asked questions and administered them, and what the Commission was looking at was the procedural and substantive fairness that was afforded to JL in relation to this manner.”

Turned tables

Despite of all his behaviour, Hickey did not at any point seem afraid of landing on the wrong side of the Fair Work Commission.

“Here’s the number for fair work Australia…Do you know what these c***s do about it? Nothing unless it’s a company worth prosecuting.”

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/legal/nazi-sparky-pays-up-despite-constructive-dismissal/feed/1‘Unattractive’ people are more likely to be ignored at work, research sayshttp://www.hrmonline.com.au/research/unattractive-people-ignored-work-research/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/research/unattractive-people-ignored-work-research/#commentsThu, 17 Jan 2019 04:53:44 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8533While previous research has shown that ‘attractive’ employees are likely to win out in a job interview, new research suggests the barriers of ‘lookism’ don’t stop there.

]]>While previous research has shown that ‘attractive’ employees are likely to win out in a job interview, new research suggests the barriers of ‘lookism’ don’t stop there.

It’s a powerful and pervasive form of workplace discrimination that doesn’t receive much attention. Researchers believe they’ve taken the first steps in uncovering how an employee’s perceived attractiveness affects their chances of participating in decisions in the workplace.

Associate professors Andrew Timming FCAHR and Chris Baumann, and senior professor of management Paul Gollan have found that appearance-based bias – known within the world of recruitment – also dictates whether or not employees will be listened to by their managers.

While some employees are more likely than others to want a say in decision-making factors – the aspiring CEO versus a newly-appointed junior, for example – little research has been conducted around the type of employee who is empowered to have a voice, irrespective of their desire to be heard.

“Appearance-based discrimination is as old as time,” says Timming. “People have always used appearance as a judgment cue. I suspect [it] has become even more important these days as a result of social media. In the age of the “selfie” we’re often just as concerned about our own appearance as others are of it.”

Facing the facts

You might be asking yourself the same question I did, how on earth do you measure someone’s attractiveness? It turns out the answer is more scientific than having a preference for blondes versus brunettes.

“[In our research] attractiveness is measured against a database of faces with some basic demographic information, then each face is rated by 2,600 other respondents on a scale,” says Timming.

It’s with this previously rated group of faces that Timming’s research begins. Participants, made up of 289 managers, were shown the faces of people aged 20-30. Older faces were excluded as age is negatively correlated with attractiveness, according to the report.

Managers were then presented with scenarios like: “Imagine an employee walks into your office and makes a suggestion about how an operational process could be improved. How likely would you be to take their advice?” They were then shown two faces, one attractive and one less attractive, with a variety in gender and race. Managers were then asked, on a scale of 1-7, how likely they’d be to act on an employee’s suggestion: 1 being not likely, 7 being extremely likely.

Attractive employees were more likely to have their opinions actioned at a management level.

“Appearance-based discrimination is as old as time. People have always used appearance as a judgment cue.”

Discrimination that transcends racism?

Surprisingly, female voices were listened to more than male voices, and there was no difference between white and non-white employees. It was only when the introduction of an attractive variable was introduced that Timming and his team noticed a difference.

You might be scratching your head at this stage. This result goes against everything we’ve ever read about marginalised voices in our communities. But Timming has a hypothesis for such a result.

“One possible explanation of this finding is what’s called the Social Desirability effect…. It’s possible that managers thought they realised what this study was about, thinking about the best socially desirable response – which is that they don’t discriminate based on gender or race – but they were unable to detect that there were different levels of attractiveness,” says Timming.

“The finding that non-white and female employees do not suffer from a “voice deficit” in the workplace may be artifact of the respondents’ attempts to conceal their biases.”

Interestingly, the gender of the managers played no part in their decision; female and male managers were equally as likely to ignore less attractive employees.

Recruitment barriers

It’s already been established that those considered less attractive often lose out on employment opportunities, and that attractive folk will rise through the ranks at a faster pace, enjoying the financial compensation that brings.

But one interesting study suggests there is one employment scenario in which attractive people lose out – if they’re applying for a low-level “undesirable job”. This suggests recruiters believe that the attractive candidate might not be satisfied working in that particular role, even though they applied for it.

It appears recruitment bias is rife on both ends of the stick.

Robert Half director, Nicole Gorton, says this unconscious bias is a surefire way to miss out on high-qualified talent.

“Hiring managers need to invest time and thought in the process to ensure every candidate receives a fair chance. These measures should go beyond the company’s existing diversity and anti-discrimination policies, which regulate behaviour rather than thought. Recruitment bias, being unconscious, is not the same as discrimination. It therefore requires a different set of approaches.”

“The finding that non-white and female employees do not suffer from a “voice deficit” in the workplace may be artifact of the respondents’ attempts to conceal their biases.”

How can HR help to combat ‘lookism’?

While Timming and his research team are confident in their results, they’ve added an important caveat: more research in this space is needed and it’s important to gather data straight from the employees’ mouths on whether or not they feel ignored.

They also say the onus is on the employer to incite change.

“It would be just as nonsensical to recommend that employees modify their appearance to makes themselves more attractive as it would be to recommend that female employees present themselves as male or black in order to reduce perceived discrimination. The fault lies in the employer, not the employee.”

Vayenas is no stranger to lookism. He recalls working at a club during his student days and says the manager would only hire “attractive women” to work behind the bar. This is, unfortunately, a common tale.

“Education is key. The obvious answer is to make sure people are aware of the brains preference for making snap, bias decisions. It’s at this point we can catch ourselves and acknowledge what we might be doing.

“I recall an excellent piece of advice I was given when undertaking interviewer training many years ago. The facilitator stressed that we shouldn’t be seduced (professionally speaking) by the candidate who ‘looked the part’ and/or ‘spoke with confidence’. His message was to scrutinise the appropriateness of the candidate’s answers and not to be distracted by façade,” says Vayenas.

The researchers are careful to mention that it’s much harder to legislate against appearance bias than it is racism or sexism.

“First, attractiveness is generally more subjective than, for example, race, gender, disability, or age, making it difficult to identify victims. Second, whilst it is conceivable that governments could legislate against wage discrimination, it is highly unlikely that they would intervene to protect employee voice. For this reason, the most sensible way of tackling the discrimination identified in this paper is to promote bias awareness among organisational decision-makers,” the paper reads.

Timming’s specific advice to HR is to question their choices.

“When you first realise that you may be discriminating against people inadvertently, this can give you pause to think in an employment context. Ask yourself: is this person really the most qualified or knowledgeable? Or is he or she just the most attractive?”

To hear more about Professor Timming’s research on employee voice, keep an eye out for our article on other aspects of his research in the February edition of HRM magazine.

Raise your team’s awareness of both conscious and unconscious bias and its impact on decision making in the workplace, with Ignition Training’s in-house training course ‘Managing unconscious bias’.

]]>A manager at a McDonald’s franchise tried to ‘negotiate’ with disgruntled workers on Facebook, and his post went viral. Here’s a breakdown from an HR perspective.

A snapshot of a post from a McDonald’s franchise manager, in which he threatens workers with restricted water and toilet breaks, has gone viral. The post is a case study in what not to do when speaking to employees in your organisation during the middle of enterprise bargaining.

It was written at the same time as the Retail and Fast Food Workers’ Union (RAFFWU) and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association are seeking leverage with McDonald’s in a deal that’s expected to restore full penalty rates (paywall). The post was specifically a reaction to arguments from the RAFFWU that McDonald’s and its franchises are not giving staff their mandated breaks under the current EBA – ten minutes for shifts of four hours or more.

The franchise manager is from Tantex Holdings, a Queensland company that owns McDonald’s franchises. He posted into a private Facebook page and essentially warned his workers that if they wanted to access their legal entitlement of 10 minute breaks, then this break would be their only opportunity to drink water and go to the toilet.

“What this means is that if we implement this over our current situation, on your shift – this 10 minute break would be the only time you would ever be permitted to have a drink or go to the toilet. So I hope to god you don’t get thirsty on your next shift because we just wouldn’t be able to allow a drink. Fair is Fair right?

“Are we really such bad guys?” the post continues, “It actually works better in our favour to follow this legislation and keep you all working non-stop.”

Whether or not they really are bad guys, the RAFFWU denounced the manager’s words, and about 50 members protested outside the Tantex Holdings store the manager worked at. A McDonald’s spokeswoman (who also didn’t weigh in on whether they were bad guys) told the Sydney Morning Herald that everyone working at McDonald’s were given breaks as required by the law.

Referring to the ongoing negotiations, the spokeswoman said the franchisor intends to “create the best possible agreement”.“This means we’re exploring a range of terms including penalty rates, guaranteed hours for part-time employees and additional leave entitlements.”

What the law says

Since the current EBA outlines a mandated break period, the manager can’t propose other arrangements in substitution of workers’ entitlements, says Alan McDonald, managing director of McDonald Murholme law firm. So this may have been a breach of section 50 of the Fair Work Act.

“Tantex may have also breached section 345(1) of the Fair Work Act 2009 by knowingly or recklessly making a false or misleading representation about workers’ rights to a paid 10-minute break… [it] may also have breached section 340(1) if it can be established that the worker’s right to a paid 10-minute break, or exercise of that right, was a substantial or operative reason for the adverse action.”

Interestingly, says McDonald, if the manager had acted on his threat of preventing breaks, he could have run afoul of health and safety legislation.

“State workplace health and safety laws typically require that employers provide workers with a working environment that is safe and without risks to health. Preventing employees from using the restroom or from drinking water outside of their paid break times creates a plethora of health risks… and therefore could breach both of the above obligations.”

With regards to franchisor responsibility, McDonald’s could potentially be liable if Tantex Holdings was found guilty of breaching section 50 but not the other alleged contraventions.

For that first breach “liability as franchisor will only be found if McDonald’s knew, or could reasonably be expected to have known, that Tantex may have breached the Enterprise Agreement and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent this from happening,” says McDonald.

When a manager speaks out

What should HR do if it’s faced with a manager potentially threatening workers and misrepresenting their rights in social media outbursts?

The immediate impulse might be to fire him on the spot. Aaron Goonrey, partner at Lander & Rogers’ Workplace Relations & Safety practice, has previously written about firing someone without notice for HRM.

He recommends that you ask yourself several questions before doing so; including was the misconduct wilful or deliberate? Did the misconduct cause a serious and imminent risk to the reputation, viability, or profitability of the business? And has the misconduct permanently destroyed the relationship of trust and confidence between the employer and employee?

You could make a solid argument that in this case the answer is a firm ‘yes’ to all three. “[But] as tempting as it might be to shortcut the dismissal process, it can ultimately lead to more time and money being expended if the dismissal is litigated,” says Goonrey.

So if dismissing the employee seems like the right move, it’s better to approach it in a more measured way.

It’s also worth making sure you have a robust social media policy, outlining what can and cannot be said online about your organisation – though you’d be forgiven for not having a provision specifically dealing with this situation in there. Before this month, who would think a manager inserting themselves into an industrial relations issue by threatening toilet rights was going to make national news?

Find out HR’s role in managing ethical dilemmas in your organisation with the AHRI short course ‘Workplace ethics’.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/industrial-relations/mcdonalds-manager-ir/feed/1Domestic violence leave is a national standard – what happens now?http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/domestic-violence-leave-national-standard/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/domestic-violence-leave-national-standard/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2019 05:15:57 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8522Unpaid family and domestic violence leave has become part of the National Employment Standards. Here are potentially fraught issues employers should know.

]]>Unpaid family and domestic violence (FDV) leave has become part of the National Employment Standards. So employers need to understand the entitlement and consider potentially fraught issues.

Any workplace could be employing an FDV victim. The Bureau of Statistics says that, of Australians aged over 15, one in six women and one in 16 men have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner. These numbers don’t include other forms of FDV.

The ALP has signaled they want to take it further and match New Zealand’s 10 days paid FDV leave entitlement (which commences January 2019). Many public sector workers already have access to 10 days of paid FDV leave.

Helping not hindering

Dealing with applications for FDV leave requires compassion and sensitivity. Respect for privacy is critical to avoid making the situation worse.

Employers need people who have been trained to spot the signs of FDV and know how to help employees access their entitlements. Employers should provide training on:

Confidentiality and privacy

Accessing employee assistance programs and other avenues for help and assistance

Developing objectivity and impartiality

Maintaining professional distance and reliance

Overcoming unconscious bias

Careful consideration needs to be given to how, and in what circumstances, confidentiality is maintained. There may be circumstances when information about an employee’s situation may need to be shared within the organisation. For example, if there are concerns regarding employee safety.

This should be done on a need-to-know basis and with the prior consent of the employee. Employees who disclose FDV should be advised how their information will be managed.

Record keeping is another issue. While FDV leave records will be “employee records” for the employee record exemption under the Privacy Act, these records should be managed in a similar way to other sensitive employee records. FDV records should be marked ‘confidential’, and access confined to authorised employees only – similar to information on grievances or disciplinary matters.

Also consider how FDV leave is recorded in payroll systems. If access can’t be restricted via a specific FDV leave payroll code, then consider manually recording information on a confidential file.

Employers must also recognise that employees experiencing FDV may not be in a position to immediately provide supporting documentation.

Other considerations

Employers covered by an award should ensure they understand the entitlement and put in place an FDV leave policy, setting out:

What the entitlement is

How the organisation will assist employees experiencing and/or disclosing FDV

Who to talk to in the organisation

How to apply for FDV leave, including how and by whom those applications will be managed

Steps the employer will take to protect the privacy of employees and maintain confidentiality

Whether any evidence will be required and, if so, what evidence (for example, documents issued by the police, a court, a registered health practitioner, a lawyer, an FDV support service)

Employers not covered by an award and who don’t have a formal FDV leave policy should be implementing one, given that the entitlement is part of the NES.

Finally, FDV leave is not the only way an employer can help those affected to feel safe and supported when they are at work. Perhaps the most important way to help is by recognising signs – not just obvious physical injuries, but other signs including arriving late, consistently calling in sick, and being distracted and unproductive at work.

Kylie Groves is a partner at Hall & Wilcox

Get an overview of HR-related policies and practices that support victims of domestic violence in Australian workplaces with AHRI’s Domestic Violence and HR Report (2017). Exclusive to AHRI members.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/domestic-violence-leave-national-standard/feed/2Is no company immune from systemic underpayment?http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/nobody-immune-systemic-underpayment/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/nobody-immune-systemic-underpayment/#commentsMon, 14 Jan 2019 05:42:32 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8519With the recent news that the ABC has underpaid thousands of workers, even established larger businesses should not presume compliance.

]]>With the recent news that the ABC has underpaid thousands of workers, even established larger businesses should not presume compliance.

A month after finding that they’d underpaid a digital news worker $19,000 over three years, the ABC has acknowledged a systemic problem – up to 2,500 casual staff have been underpaid over the last six years.

It has notified the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) and is working with it and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) in order to conduct an urgent review. It will involve notifying current and former staff who might be affected, and finding out what went wrong at a procedural level.

The ABC section secretary at the CPSU is speculating that the cost of all the underpayments could be huge. “If there are 2,500 people affected and one individual with three years of employment under their belt was [underpaid by] $19,000, we’re anticipating the liability to be sizeable… It’s disappointing, given the ABC has repeatedly responded to our concerns by assuring us they are paying casuals correctly,” Sinndy Ealy told the ABC.

This comes at a bad time for the ABC. Their annual funding indexation is frozen for three years starting July this year, which will cost the organisation $84 million.

What makes the revelation of underpayment particularly interesting is that the broadcaster is an old institution that currently employs over 4,000 people, and it’s highly scrutinised by both other media outlets and federal politicians. Which is to say it’s incentivised to do everything it can to avoid non-compliance like this, and it should also have the experience and resources to make compliance a non-issue.

So what happened?

A culture of complacency

Late last year former Fair Work Ombudsman and current partner in advisory at Deloitte, Natalie James, spoke to the Australian Financial Reviewabout her belief that big businesses and corporate boards weren’t paying enough attention to workplace compliance.

“What really blew me away in my time as FWO was the number of larger, established, profitable businesses getting it wrong… They may have been getting it wrong for a whole range of reasons, but at its heart complacency was behind [it],” she told the AFR.

She told the paper that her FWO experiences led her to believe that a lot of boards don’t even ask for reports on workplace compliance.

Given her new position at Deloitte, which is poised to help clients with this exact issue, James’ comments should be taken with a grain of salt. But the recent ABC scandal demonstrates that her analysis shouldn’t be entirely dismissed.

Firstly because the CPSU specifically claims there was complacency. According to Ealy, the broadcaster “repeatedly responded to our concerns by assuring us they were paying casuals correctly”.

But secondly because the ABC isn’t the only larger organisation to deal with a workplace compliance issue as obvious as underpayment. After an internal investigation cosmetics giant Lush admitted to underpaying over 5000 retail and manufacturing workers, blaming serious payroll system errors (part-time employees who worked overtime were believed to be the worst affected).

And as HRM has reported previously, it’s also been an issue with larger franchise organisations, such as Caltex and 7-11. The problem was so bad for the former that it set aside $20 million to deal with underpayments, and is moving to bring all petrol stations under company control by next year.

Given the penalties, not to mention the reputational damage, a lot of organisations would be wise to raise the profile of compliance with workplace laws. While HRM has written about the importance of putting HR in the C-suite from a strategic point of view, it might also be a worthwhile move from a risk management perspective.

A culture of non-compliance

It would be nice to think that this issue was simply one of complacency. But obviously there are some organisations that deliberately underpay. Just recently two labour-hire businesses that serviced a home care company in South Australia were penalised over $200,000 (total) over a sham contracting scheme, after legal action was taken by the FWO. (Also, an owner of one of the businesses and a contractor were individually penalised for being directly involved in the scheme.)

Both companies misclassified employees as contractors, and neither sought legal advice on correct classification. The Federal Circuit Court judge, Timothy Heffernan, said doing so was a “strategic decision made substantially for the purpose of saving money”.

And sometimes whole industries have problems with underpayments. After Rockpool Dining Group were found to be guilty of underpayment, celebrity chef Neil Perry argued that almost no restaurants are compliant with workplace laws. Unfortunately, the facts suggest he’s only exaggerating a little. In a series of audits the FWO found that of 243 hospitality businesses in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, 72 per cent were in breach of workplace laws.

The problem with a culture like this is that it sustains itself. When so many businesses in an industry aren’t compliant, its workers are even less likely to realise something is wrong with their individual situation. It’s a different and more depressing version of “systemic underpayment”.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/employment-law/nobody-immune-systemic-underpayment/feed/1What plants and lottery tickets teach us about rating calibrationhttp://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/plants-lottery-tickets-teach-rating-calibration/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/plants-lottery-tickets-teach-rating-calibration/#commentsFri, 11 Jan 2019 02:26:43 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8514Rating calibration is important for performance management, but HR professionals should be aware that it can undermine the human need for control.

]]>Rating calibration is important for performance management, but HR professionals should be aware that it can undermine the human need for control.

Calibration – the collective review and adjustment of ratings – is widely used by organisations to remove bias and inconsistency from the performance management process.

However, it also removes control and ownership from the manager and employee, and that can be damaging. This has implications for HR professionals. But to understand more about the neuroscience behind this we first need to look at lottery tickets, aged care and pot plants.

The human preference for control

Humans like to be in control; that’s how we’re wired. As Harvard Professor Dan Gilbert puts it, “being effective – changing things, influencing things, making things happen – is one of the fundamental needs with which human brains seem to be naturally endowed.”

One of the more notable – and tragic – experiments in this area involved pot plants. Researchers gave residents of an aged care home a plant. Half were told that they were responsible for looking after the plants, while the remainder were told someone else would.

After six months, 30 per cent of the second group of participants had died, compared to only 15 per cent of the first. Controlling for other variables, the researchers concluded that having control over the plant made the difference.

In a follow-up study, residents were split into two groups and assigned a student to visit them. Group A got to control when their visitor came to see them, but group B did not. After two months residents in group A were happier, healthier and taking less medication than those in group B.

Tragically, the researchers found that after they stopped this study, a disproportionate number of people in group A died. They concluded that having control and then losing it is worse than never having it.

There are plenty of more mundane, and even illogical, examples of the human need for control. For example, people feel more certain they will win the lottery if they can control the numbers chosen, and in those circumstances are more likely to bet more money. Another study showed that you will feel more confident of winning a dice toss if you are the one throwing the dice.

So having a sense of control over your actions matters a lot, and there are consequences to losing that control. Positive psychology guru Marty Seligman sums it up well: “If humans lose their ability to control things…they become helpless, hopeless, depressed.”

The implications for ratings calibration

While there are many sound reasons to calibrate performance ratings, doing so takes control of the process away, not just from the manager but also the employee. This is damaging for both parties.

The manager knows that the rating decision is not ultimately theirs, and that it can be changed – undermined – by others. And the employee feels a loss of control because they are being measured against other people (whose performance they can’t control) and their rating is ultimately determined by people who they may not know very well.

This lack of control will be familiar to HR professionals. It’s common to hear of managers failing to take ownership of ratings that change post-calibration, and there are lots of stories of managers handing down calibrated ratings with the caveat: “if it were up to me, I would have said you exceeded expectations.”

This is more than simple dissatisfaction with a policy. Calibration challenges our fundamental need to be in control, not at a process level, but from a neurological standpoint.

How not to manage the control-calibration paradox

Clearly HR leaders need to manage the impact of this loss of control. First of all, let’s look at what not to do:

Stop calibration: This is a bad idea. Rater bias is a well-established phenomenon. Relying on one individual’s opinion generates inconsistent and subjective results.

Remove performance ratings: Some form of differentiation between employees is needed (whether or not you share the rating with the employee).

Remove manager responsibility for rating: Doing this would fundamentally change the role of the manager and their relationship with employees.

Tips for HR leaders

So what should HR leaders do to ensure that the calibration process is as effective as it can be?

Recognise the complexity of the issue: The first step is to recognise – and educate business stakeholders – that the loss of control inherent in calibration is an issue that requires a sensible and considered response.

Educate others: Explain to all stakeholders the reasons why calibration is used, and don’t be afraid to share the science around control.

Be as transparent as possible: Give feedback to managers and employees on your changes. This provides confidence in the process, and creates a strong incentive for those involved to up their game. You could even consider having observers – peers from other business units or even union or employee representatives – in the calibration sessions.

Get feedback: Use surveys and interviews to check if managers and employees understand the calibration process, and what they think of it. This will help you refine the process and give stakeholders a sense of control.

Murray Priestman is the founder and principal of Priestman Associates. He was previously global head of talent for Macquarie Group, and worked as a management consultant with KPMG in Europe and Australia.

Gain an overview of the performance appraisal process and get practical tips with the AHRI short course ‘Performance management’.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/plants-lottery-tickets-teach-rating-calibration/feed/2A science-backed guide to making a good first impression onlinehttp://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/strategic-hr/a-science-backed-guide-to-making-a-good-first-impression-online/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/strategic-hr/a-science-backed-guide-to-making-a-good-first-impression-online/#commentsThu, 10 Jan 2019 06:05:35 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8509How do you make a good impression when you’ve never met the person you’re engaging with (and probably never will)?

]]>How do you make a good impression when you’ve never met the person you’re engaging with (and probably never will)?

Whether you’re starting a new job, joining a new team, or engaging in a one-on-one meeting with someone for the first time, the initial impression you give carries a lot of weight.

You’ve likely heard of the seven second rule – the length of time you have to relay your entire personality to a new acquaintance in a positive light, and HRM has previously highlighted the important role that attire can play in making those seven seconds count.

But with ‘offices’ increasingly shifting to the online space, virtual first impressions should start to receive the same level of attention.

How do you show warmth online?

Whether they’re aware of it or not, people are looking for two specific qualities when they meet someone for the first time: if they can trust them (warmth) and if they can respect them (competence). This is the conclusion of Harvard Business School professor, Amy Cuddy, who has researched the topic for fifteen years.

While competence is crucial in a professional sense, Cuddy’s research suggests that trust is more important. This makes sense, it’s a much more important quality in an evolutionary sense.

As Cuddy says, via Medium, “A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you’ve achieved trust does your strength become a gift rather than a threat.”

But what if you work in a virtual team, as so many of us do these days (one study suggests 70 per cent of professionals in the world work remotely at least once per week). How do you convey your warmth and competence via an online platform without overdoing it on the emojis. Example: I’m smart , capable , and warm .… I’m also allergic to dairy .

Tell the whole story

Jeffrey Cummings of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, alongside Alan Dennis of Indiana University, explore virtual impressions in their September 2018 paper ‘Do SNS Impressions Matter? Virtual Team and Impression Formation in the Era of Social Technologies’.

In the past, he says, virtual impressions have been limited to the interpretation of information sent in an email/instant message, but workplace social media platforms enable the development of “socio-emotional processes in virtual teams”. No longer do you have to take John’s word that he’s a great marketer, you can go to his company profile and verify his credentials yourself.

So it’s quite easy to establish competency online, what about that other elusive quality, warmth?

Cumming says the development of social capital relies heavily on being able to identify with others. Much like small talk is integral in a face-to-face meeting, so too is sharing miscellaneous information about yourself online. Cummings says the “about or summary/bio” sections of an online profile shouldn’t be glossed over.

It’s not easy and it can feel a little cringeworthy to talk of menial details about yourself to no one and everyone at the same time, but Cummings says it pays off.

“This section provides initial statements made by an individual arguing that he/she possess features that would help increase their credibility to be trusted or identify with others.”

Cumming notes that a simple claim might not always be enough. Sometimes you need to include certain “data”, such as your home town or university, to backup your trustworthiness and establish common ground.

To tie a bow around your neatly packaged online trust levels, Cummings says having some kind of external backing to legitimise claims is helpful. That’s why LinkedIn have included the ‘endorsement and comment’ features.

Cumming’s experiment contained three variables: relational capital (measuring individual trust in others and identification with team members), structural capital (measuring the social capital within the team), and cognitive capital (measuring knowledge, expectations and values).

“Relational social capital appears to elicit the strongest perceptions when a fully composed argument (claim/data/backing) is included in that profile, while cognitive and structural social capital may only need a claim and data to portray high perceptions of these dimensions. This has important implications for future interactions as this initial impression of relational social capital will accelerate trust formation in a virtual team environment,” says Cummings.

Showing your human side online

The more relatable you are, the more likable you are. Fast Company reports that one psychiatrist in particular felt credentials alone weren’t enough to establish trust. So whenever he met with a new patient he’d make a point of dropping his pen or spilling his cup of coffee, pointing out a flaw in an attempt make himself appear more “human”.

This is a technique from psychologist Elliot Aronson who, in the 1960s, conducted an experiment that found those in superior, high performing roles who “commit a clumsy blunder” increase their interpersonal attractiveness, because mistake = vulnerable and vulnerable = relatable.

How does this translate online? The article goes on to mention a senior woman, considered to be cold, who started to introduce spelling and grammatical mistakes in her emails to colleagues. As a result, her workplace relationships improved.

Final pieces of advice

There’s so much advice out there on making a good first virtual impression. To finish this article off, here are three tips HRM considered to be the most helpful.

Organise your digital assets

With people highly likely to “Google” you prior to your first meeting, it’s imperative that your professional social networks are up to scratch with sufficient information and an appropriate image, and that others are set to private. I don’t have to harp on about the damage a single photograph can do, you work in HR, you know.

Emoji for clarity

While I poked fun at this earlier, emojis can be helpful. Research from Penn State suggests that when customer service professionals engage their clients with an emoji or two, satisfaction levels are increased. “The emoticon is even more powerful than a picture.” says S. Shyam Sundar, one of the researchers.

Of course, there’s a time and place for these things, so proceed with caution (and make sure you understand the double meanings behind certain emojis).

Try and keep communication flowing

As we’re always plugged in these days, a late response to an email usually means one of two things: I’m too busy or I don’t care enough. Not a message you want to send if you’re trying to develop an online relationship. In one study, 80 per cent of respondents consider four hours to be an appropriate response window. Of course, this is not always doable. Sometimes you are just too busy. Just try and be as consistent where possible.

I’m not sure if the seven second rule still applies to online first impressions, but if you’ve made it this far along in the article I’ve probably taken up at least 300 seconds of your time. Do you trust me yet?

Have an HR question? Access online HR resource AHRI:ASSIST for guidelines, information sheets and policy templates on different HR issues.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/section/strategic-hr/a-science-backed-guide-to-making-a-good-first-impression-online/feed/1Stack-ranking is appealing, and it should diehttp://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/stack-ranking-appealing-die/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/stack-ranking-appealing-die/#commentsWed, 09 Jan 2019 05:35:16 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8463Facebook has put stack-ranking back in the spotlight. Critics say that while the practice might be appealing, it results in troubling outcomes.

]]>Facebook has put stack-ranking back in the spotlight. Critics say that while the practice might be appealing, it results in troubling outcomes.

Is one of the causes of Facebook’s scandal plagued 2018 their performance management system?

That’s the thrust of a recent report by CNBC. It details how the social media giant runs its stack-ranking program, and is filled with disgruntled ex-employees railing against its injustices and arguing that it created a cult-like environment.

What is stack-ranking?

Stack-ranking (also called ‘rank and yank’ or the ‘vitality curve’) is a performance management system made famous by General Electric. Basically it’s company-wide survival of the fittest. It assumes a workforce can be broken down into a number of discrete performance levels. General Electric had a three-tier 20-70-10 system (top 20 per cent, middle 70 per cent, and bottom 10 per cent), while Facebook has a system of at least seven tiers.

The essential premise of the ranking system is that your top performers deliver your most impressive results and should be rewarded for doing so; the bulk of your staff demonstrate adequate levels of performance; and that your bottom performers should be dismissed (the ‘yank’ in rank and yank).

A premature funeral

If Jack Welch and General Electric made stack-ranking famous, Steve Ballmer and Microsoft made it infamous. A widely acclaimed Vanity Fairarticle from 2012 linked the decade long fall of what was the world’s most valuable company to the now former CEO and his preferred performance management practice.

Since then Microsoft, Amazon, and General Electric itself have all backed away from stack-ranking. But that didn’t mean it died. Clearly Facebook maintained the faith, and while exact numbers are impossible to come by, it wasn’t the only company to do so.

The appeal

There’s an undeniably pleasing logic to ranking employees. Every organisation has its superstars and poor performers. And who wouldn’t like a system that rewards the former and weeds out the latter? In-company Darwinism seems like a winning formula because it promises an environment of competitiveness where employees push themselves to excel and innovate.

What’s more, stack-ranking generates continual renewal, as every year people in your organisation are assessed and the weak are culled. It also allows you to set standards. Figuring out who the top employees are can help an organisation better understand their ideal candidates.

Finally, stack-ranking can be particularly appealing to managers. While there is stress in having to categorise those who report to you, stack-ranking provides a framework for tough conversations. On the surface, it seems less cruel to assess relative ability, rather than inherent ability.

The problems

In that original Vanity Fair article, one former Microsoft employee neatly sums up the critical fault of stack-ranking.

“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review. It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

Worse still, your ranking is arbitrary and there is no room for anything but one uniform ‘reality’. Microsoft’s system simultaneously insisted that employees within teams were on a bell curve and that all teams are on a flat line. So it actively worked against attempts to create a high performing team.

Most bizarrely, the principles of stack-ranking don’t allow for the idea that stack-ranking can be effective.

Imagine your system does everything you want it to, and over many years the sense of competition instilled in your staff has gotten rid of all but the best performers. Even after you’ve completely eliminated unacceptable performance, stack-ranking still requires you to assume you have an underclass of employees that should be culled.

Here are some of the other issues critics have with stack-ranking:

In order to better stand out, top performers have an incentive to work with as few other top performers as possible, which both limits their individual growth and prevents top performing teams.

Everyone is incentivised to devote time to office politics (using up time they could spend on helping the company). Also, a talent for office politics can become just as valuable as being talented at your job.

If there’s a peer component to evaluation, like at Facebook, then politics will be horizontal as well as vertical. More time will be wasted as you need to ingratiate yourself with everyone.

Stack-ranking incentivises short-term thinking, as failure to get tangible wins within a performance management period harms your ranking

Stack-ranking artificially limits talent management. If you think someone underperforming in one department might excel in another, how can you make the case if they’re stamped as a low performer?

Lies, damn lies, and lawsuits

Even if you worked diligently to make sure that your stack-ranking was fair, there’s nothing you can do to avoid the perception of unfairness.

As a species, we’re prone to over confidence and numerous studies prove that we tend to overestimate our abilities. In a well-known example from the eighties, students were asked to rank their driving skills. As the study says, in one group “93 per cent believed themselves to be more skilful drivers than the median driver”.

Combine this inability to accurately evaluate our own performance with a system that arbitrarily evaluates it and you have a perfect storm for employee dissatisfaction. Indeed, as HRM has written about before, performance pressure of this sort causes staff to lie and cheat – not out of selfishness but out of self-preservation.

It would also be remiss to not mention that stack-ranking has left a lot of companies open to being sued. If your organisation has an unaddressed bias against women or minorities, or even just an culture of garden variety favouritism, stack-ranking means that these potentially unlawful practices are explicitly tracked.

Microsoft and Uber both had to hire lawyers to defend against claims of illegal sexist practices tied to their stack-ranking. And in 2002 Ford paid $10.5 million to settle two class action suits.

Possible exceptions

Some people point out that there are situations where stack-ranking can be more appropriate. If you need collaboration to succeed, such as with a team of engineers, then stack-ranking doesn’t work. But it might be suitable for competitive environments, such as your sales department.

The counterpoint here is that even when you want healthy competition, too much of it might encourage unacceptable levels of risk-taking. It can be unwise to take the naturally competitive nature of a sales team and raise the stakes even higher. After all, a lot of the worst behaviour revealed by the Banking royal commission has been laid at the feet of reward systems that focussed too much on short term success.

When it comes down to it, in a world with so many modern performance management alternatives, why would you go with one that has its theoretical roots in 19th century Social Darwinism?

Gain an overview of the performance appraisal process and get practical tips with the AHRI short course ‘Performance management’.

]]>http://www.hrmonline.com.au/performance/stack-ranking-appealing-die/feed/1What’s the best way to incentivise staff to stay healthy?http://www.hrmonline.com.au/wellness/whats-best-way-incentivise-staff-stay-healthy/
http://www.hrmonline.com.au/wellness/whats-best-way-incentivise-staff-stay-healthy/#commentsTue, 08 Jan 2019 04:08:42 +0000http://www.hrmonline.com.au/?p=8459Should you give your staff a sandwich for having a good sleep? A look into different ways to encourage wellness at work.

]]>Should you give your staff a sandwich for having a good sleep? A look into different ways to encourage wellness at work.

As a new year rolls in, it’s common for people to take a “new year, new me” approach to their lives. They might sign up for a gym membership, change their eating habits or pledge to kick their nicotine addiction. While this is well intentioned, most resolutions don’t pan out – one prediction has it that 80 per cent of new year resolutions are ditched come February. But what if your workplace made a health and wellbeing new year resolution for you?

According to Willis Towers Watson research from October 2018, 74 per cent of employers were considering implementing behavioural or emotional health management programs, 55 per cent were looking at activity-based wellbeing programs, and 50 per cent identified lifestyle risk management as their priority.

Tangible rewards for behavioural changes

In a US survey of larger businesses, nearly nine out of ten employers that provided a wellbeing program offered financial compensation as part of the program, an 11 per cent increase from 2017. Annual incentive amounts are also on the rise, from $742 in 2017 to $784 in 2018. This number is only expected to increase, with 67 per cent of surveyed employers saying they planned to expand upon these programs over the coming three to five years.

It makes sense that in US organisations are jumping into physical wellness programs in a bid to lower healthcare costs, considering most of them are footing the insurance bill. But health and fitness in the workplace is also on the global agenda.

One example that recently gained a fair amount of media attention was the Japanese wedding planning company, Crazy Inc., that gave its employees ‘points’ for sleeping at least six hours per night, five days per week. These points could be redeemed at the office’s cafeteria for a value of up to $570 per year (64,000 yen). (Snoozing hard for edible rewards? That sounds like my kind of employer.)

You might be thinking, how on earth do they measure this? No, company reps don’t sit at employee bedsides each night taking notes. Like most things nowadays, there’s an app for that! Technology is embedded into the employee’s mattresses to measure their time under the sheets.

What’s the most effective way to reward?

Reports found that financial rewards are more effective than token gift incentives in increasing participation rates in workplace health assessments and biometric screenings. Interestingly, participation rates are higher for organisations using no incentives, compared to those using just token gifts.

This seems to show that employees want their organisations to put their money where their mouth is and invest in a program that benefits them twofold: they get fit and also save on lunch money. Who wants a participation ribbon when they could take home some cold, hard cash?

This comes from a report issued by Hero and Mercer, which surveyed 777 organisations. The report also looked at the effectiveness of participation-based incentives (rewarding staff for simply being involved), outcome-based incentives (rewards for reaching specific health targets, such as lowering blood pressure/losing weight) and activity-based incentives (offering a reward for reaching 10,000 steps in a day).

Respondents reported less use of outcome-based incentives versus participation-based incentives, activity-based incentives or no incentives at all. This makes sense as revealing health-based outcomes to an employer my be too intimate for some.

How much should employees have to share?

When it comes to monitoring individual health and wellbeing, there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

For example, heath and fitness company Noom offer staff up to $2,400 each year to stay fit. This money is to be used on health related costs: gym memberships, massages, yoga classes and the like. On face value, this is a great idea, especially when you consider how costly such activities can be. However, by allocating this money towards a specific activity, such as going to the gym, you could alienate staff members who might not feel comfortable doing so. Those utilising the services could also feel as though they’re under a microscope; which services are you using, do they comply with the organisation’s standards of ‘health and fitness’ and, perhaps most alarmingly, and are they paying off?

Perhaps rather than allocating funds for a specific service, employers could reward staff for the health and fitness regimes they’re already partaking in, encouraging them to continue.

HRM previously reported on a company that paid their staff $5 everytime they opted to ride their bike to work, doubling to $10 per ride if they kept the habit going for a whole year. In this same article, Zappos’ former wellness coordinator Kelly Maher spoke of their fun approach to fitness at work, reportedly taking staff to off-site activities like laser tag or trampolining and allocating “recess breaks” where staff could play sports like basketball.

This approach might be less intrusive as the variation in activities might provide something for the less sporty among us (full disclosure: a gym is my personal idea of hell) and could also double as a team building exercise. That’s a win for employers too!

Whatever your preference is, there’s no one-fits-all approach to employee wellness. It’s best to keep all of your people in mind when formulating an incentive program.

Learn about mental health awareness, stress management and effective strategies to manage health and wellness appropriately in the workplace, with the AHRI short course ‘Mindfulness – mental health at work’.